


Rise and Go

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-22
Updated: 2005-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:13:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1643375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fletcher/Jeremy, Finity's End; coming of age; learning to live within the rules.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rise and Go

**Author's Note:**

> Written for vanillafluffy

 

 

"Hey," Wayne called him over. "Run a message to JR. He's in the games parlor at Blue 28. Tell him we got Fletcher."

"We got him?"

"Sure. Tell JR."

***

All of his life, there had been stories of Fletcher Neihart. Jeremy was eight, ship years, before he was really certain they were two different people: the Fletcher Neihart who had closed the airlock door with station guards shooting at him, and the Fletcher Neihart who was trapped on Pell Station.

Fletcher Neihart was his age, all but a month: if Jeremy had been born a month later, he might have been left on Pell Station with Fletcher. If Fletcher had been born a month sooner, he'd be Jeremy's agemate, like Vince and Linda were agemates.

It was a game. Thinking how it would be if Fletcher were here, if Jeremy wasn't last and youngest. It wasn't real.

***

Fletcher's going to bunk with you.

Here's a beeper. Use it if Fletcher gives you any trouble.

You won't be doing tape for the first few jumps. In case you need to help Fletcher.

Fletcher's never done jumps before. He won't know about _V_ -dumps. He won't know about take-hold. You keep an eye on Fletcher.

Fletcher was his age-mate: his age all but a month. Jeremy was going to be the older cousin, the one who looked out for someone younger.

***

Then he was sitting on his bunk, waiting, wondering. The door opened, and a senior-junior came in -- a Neihart cousin, JR's age, twenty-five, dark-haired, blue-eyed. He was carrying a bundle of clothing, standard issue, all of it new.

"Hi. I'm Jeremy."

The senior-junior -- _Fletcher_ \-- looked at him, unfriendly. "Yeah?"

None of this was how Jeremy had planned it. Fletcher wasn't -- he'd forgotten, station-years were different from ship-years. Fletcher wasn't pleased to see him. Fletcher had no idea who he was.

"I got lucky," Jeremy said. He was trying to sound friendly, but he thought his voice was wavering. "We're bunkmates."

Fletcher scowled at him. "No, we're not." He threw his clothes down on the bunk.

"I live here," Jeremy protested. "First."

Fletcher turned on him. "No way in hell." He sounded angry. Real angry. "This does it! This is the limit!"

"Well, I don't want you here either!" Real smart, Jeremy.

"Good," Fletcher snapped. He turned -- they were minutes from take-hold -- and tried to walk out.

_You keep an eye on Fletcher._

Jeremy went after him. JR was going to be mad. Fletcher could get hurt. Jeremy wasn't sure right now which was worse. Fletcher wasn't who Jeremy expected him to be. But he was real.

***

Fletcher was in charge of the junior-juniors, and likely would be for a few years: Jeremy hoped so, anyway. It meant that instead of spending station-time shut in a sleepover room except when someone senior had time to take them somewhere, they got to see everything and do everything and hit all the dessert bars. They all wore the brown sweaters that made them like a crew, even though no one outside knew it.

There were babies being born now. New _Finity_ crew. The first children born on _Finity's End_ since the War. The first since Jeremy.

"Are you going to get put in charge of them, too?" Jeremy asked once, when the others couldn't hear.

Fletcher seemed to find that very funny. "Maybe," he said. Then he looked at Jeremy, and stopped laughing. "Hey."

"What is it?"

Fletcher put his hand on Jeremy's shoulder, and gave a gentle shove, friendly-like. "You know what this job was, so do I. They had to do something with me, so they put me in charge of you kids. Worked out, didn't it? Kept us all out of trouble. Mostly. Now maybe when these kids get old enough to get their first liberty, _you'll_ get put in charge of them."

Jeremy made a face. Fletcher laughed. "Or maybe Vince will."

That was funny.

Then Vince and Linda came back, wanting to go to the next games parlor, and they stopped talking about it. Whatever it was they were talking about.

***

Fletcher was always going to look older than him, Jeremy realised. Even when they were both posted crew, Fletcher was never going to look like his agemate. But he was. Jeremy was older than him.

"Fletcher, do you ever sleep over with anyone?" he asked on Pell.

Fletcher gave him a look. "Sometimes."

"Who?"

"Mind your own business," Fletcher said, but he said it nicely.

"When?"

"When I'm not on duty."

***

Jeremy thought about that. He'd had the sex ed tapes, and the lectures, and the Rule that was the same Rule for all merchanters, Family or not, Union or Alliance: _keep it off the deck._

That didn't mean just saving it for sleepovers, having sex only with people from other ships, or stationdwellers -- Jeremy never specialised in biostudies, but every kid on _Finity_ , long before they were old enough to go stationside, knew about why it mattered that _Finity_ women made babies only with men who weren't from _Finity_.

It meant not letting sex distract you from the job, and not letting sex distract your cousins from the job.

Fletcher could have moved out from Jeremy's cabin more than a year ago, but he hadn't. They both did tape in Jump now, had for a long time, but Jeremy liked having Fletcher to talk to in the hours of take-hold. He kind of thought Fletcher liked it too. They weren't on duty, either of them, but _keep it off the deck_. He thought and thought about that. Mariner was next, and a ten-day layover.

***

They had four rooms booked on the same hall in a fancy sleepover in Mariner. There weren't any duties for the junior-junior crew, though Vince was carrying a pocketcom and following what Legal were doing: he was consciously proud of his status, even though it meant writing up a summary for Geraint in Legal, who was mentoring Vince this year.

"I'm not going to remind you to do it," Fletcher had told Vince, right from the start. "If you ask, you get to go back to the sleepover on your own and work there, but if I find you're going someplace else, you'll have to stick with us the whole time, and if you can't keep up, that's your problem."

Vince had shrugged, but not in a defiant or sulky way: well, Jeremy figured, they _were_ growing up. Even Vince wasn't such an ass any more.

The first day Linda looked smug as they were sitting in a dessert bar when Vince's pocketcom went off, and Vince looked like this was more than he'd bargained for.

"Finish your dessert," Fletcher advised, carefully not looking amused, but Vince took one more spoonful and went, walking briskly. Jeremy figured Fletcher probably checked up that Vince _did_ go to the sleepover, but neither Jeremy nor Linda spotted when.

The second day Linda offered to go back to the sleepover with Vince. Fletcher said no, but the third day, he said yes: "But no going anywhere _but_ the sleepover, okay?"

"What if we finish early?" Linda asked.

"'We'?" Fletcher asked. "I thought you wanted to sit Armscomp, not Legal."

"I can look stuff up," Linda said.

She could, too, good as Vince, almost as good as Fletcher.

"Okay," Fletcher said. "Your liberty. Your call."

Fletcher sat back in his chair when they were gone, and grinned at Jeremy. "What shall we do now?"

Jeremy thought about it. The next place they were planning to go to was the Aquarium, Linda's choice, but he didn't mind doing that: it was all right. But then, Linda would want to go once she and Vince were free, and Jeremy didn't want to do it twice.

"Let's go walk," he said.

"Walk?" Fletcher outright grinned at him.

"Tell me what it's like being on a station," Jeremy said, and bit his lip. That was dumb. What he wanted to say was, _Tell me about you_ , but that was dumber: Fletcher would just shrug and ask "What do you want to know?" Fletcher had told him most of the stuff that mattered in the long take-hold stretches, at least Jeremy thought he had.

Fletcher shrugged. "You want to take another look round the curio stores? Okay."

That wasn't what Jeremy had meant, but it got them walking. They weren't in uniform. You couldn't be alone on a station, any more than you could be on a ship, but being where only stationers could see them was almost as good. He stopped Fletcher in a stretch of hall where there wasn't anyone but a handful of stationers going about their business, paying them no attention.

"What is it?" Fletcher was looking at him with concern.

Jeremy put his hand on Fletcher's shoulder. How did you start? The sex ed tapes didn't explain this bit, and the songs didn't either. It was dumb to say "Come back to my sleepover," when both of you were in the same sleepover. He pushed his mouth at Fletcher, and planted a kiss on Fletcher's lips, and drew back. "I want," he said, dry-mouthed.

"Kid -- " Fletcher said.

"I'm _not_ a kid," Jeremy said. His voice, which had nearly stopped breaking, cracked in the middle, so that the front half of the sentence was baritone and the last half was tenor. "I know what I want!"

"Jeremy," Fletcher said then. "Look -- " He put his hands on Jeremy's shoulders, and rocked him, gently, but holding him away from Fletcher. "We're -- I like you, Jeremy, but you _are_ just a kid."

"I'm a month older than you!" Jeremy snapped. This time it came out all in baritone. "I'm -- I'm old enough to sleep over, the medic said -- she told me -- " In point of fact it had been an excruciatingly embarrassing lecture about going with people from other ships his own age, only in the sleepover booked by _Finity_ ("or ask Fletcher," the medic said), not going with stationers, remembering to ask about contraception. It had been the Official Lecture, and Vince (Jeremy checked) had got one just like it one station ago, and Vince said Linda had been told Officially too, but for her it had been different. Vince hadn't seemed too embarrassed about it, but Jeremy had been thinking --

\-- about Fletcher.

And he _hadn't_ asked Vince what he and Linda planned to do in the sleepover with their spare time, if Linda helped him look stuff up. Vince and Linda were a pair, all right, and Linda would, when it came time, pick someone from another ship to have _Finity_ children with, if she wanted them -- it was weird to think of Linda being old enough, but they _were_ getting older --

"You're a month older than me station-years. Not ship-years." Fletcher wasn't looking at him like he was going to say yes: he was looking at Jeremy like he was a kid, and Jeremy got mad. He put both hands on Fletcher's shoulders -- he didn't have to reach up all that far, he was almost Fletcher's height now, and he saw Fletcher recognise that with a look of surprise -- and planted his mouth on Fletcher's again.

This was different from the first time. Fletcher started out with his mouth closed, but after Jeremy worked on him for a few moments, his lips parted, and his tongue came out to meet Jeremy's, and Jeremy was glad he was holding on to Fletcher, because it _was_ different, it was a lot more exciting than the tapes, it was Fletcher who was kissing him --

The door to one of the stores opened behind them. The storekeeper said, half-amused, half-annoyed, "Will you two kids take it home -- " And then saw them, as they separated and turned to look at him, and seemed to realise only then they weren't stationers. "Hire a sleepover," he snapped, and closed the door, sharply.

Fletcher was grinning. He caught Jeremy by the arm and pulled him away, from Jeremy's first instinct to yell at the storekeeper.

"You wanted to walk," he said. "Let's walk."

"Why is that funny?"

"The Downers say 'walk', in spring," Fletcher said, casting him a curious glance. "A female Downer sets out to walk, and the males who want to be her mates walk after her. The one who keeps up longest gets to be her mate."

Jeremy glanced up at Fletcher's face. "I'd walk after you," he said, and hesitated, about sure he'd said too much.

Fletcher looked down at him. "Let's talk," he said. They were walking, and there weren't many people about, and they weren't wearing _Finity_ patches.

"I've had the sex ed tapes," Jeremy said. "And the Official Lecture."

"The what?"

"I guess you didn't get it," Jeremy said.

Fletcher grinned a little. "I guess I did, but I don't think it was quite the same one you got." He paused. "And this situation wasn't exactly covered."

"Having sex with someone from _Finity_?" Jeremy said. "Well, it's not as if we're going to get each other pregnant."

He meant it seriously, but Fletcher still laughed. "No," he said. "But is that all that matters?"

"It's nobody else's business," Jeremy said. "I'm old enough to sleepover."

"We should talk about this," Fletcher said. "Not here." He looked around. "Let's -- " he looked at Jeremy, and the look was unamused " -- walk."

***

They went back to the sleepover, and Vince was just finishing up his summary report, so they went out again to buy dinner, because Jeremy couldn't think of a good reason not to, and Fletcher still looked... unamused.

After dinner, Linda insisted on one more games parlor, so they did that -- Jeremy actually forgot his worries as they all chased pink dinosaurs through a green-blue fantasy landscape -- and then Fletcher herded them all back to the sleepover. Linda went to her room. Vince went to his. Jeremy stood at the door of his, and Fletcher looked at him.

"Oh, come in," he said finally, and pushed at his own door, not looking to see if Jeremy followed him.

"Keep it off the deck," Fletcher said. He was standing over by the vidscreen, absently twitching through channels, though the sound was off. Jeremy stood by the door, wondering if it was okay to sit down on the bed. "What does that mean to you?"

"Means don't let sex get in the way of doing your work. But we're off duty now."

"You are. I'm not. I'm responsible for you."

Jeremy understood by that that Fletcher was going to say no. But he also understood, after a moment, that Fletcher didn't want to say no.

"You're meant to take care of me," Jeremy said. "But we're all getting old enough to sleep over _with_ someone."

"I checked the ship's rules," Fletcher said, unexpectedly. Jeremy didn't know when, but Fletcher was sneaky like that, sometimes. "You're not allowed to sleep over with anyone you like. Only other ship personnel, only junior-juniors also cleared, and either in the sleepover _Finity_ booked for you, or _their_ sleepover, if you can get permission from the department head responsible for you." Fletcher shrugged. "I'm not a junior-junior."

"I was told only people my age," Jeremy said. "And you're my agemate." In fact the ship's rules did say "of equivalent age": it was Fletcher's interpretation that said "junior-junior".

"Like Vince and Linda?"

Jeremy hadn't been sure if Fletcher knew about that. "Yeah."

Fletcher said nothing. He had stopped changing channels, but Jeremy was fairly sure he wasn't watching the one he'd stopped on, an educational tape about the history of Mariner. After a while, Fletcher turned and looked at Jeremy.

"Just because I'm your agemate doesn't mean we have to do this."

Jeremy shook his head. He moved over to Fletcher, a lot closer. He put his hand on Fletcher's shoulder. "I want to," he said. "I never did -- with anyone -- before. I want to, with you. I've done all the tapes."

Fletcher laughed, but this time he sounded almost nervous. "I haven't. Not your tapes." Stationer sex ed tapes were different, so legend had it.

"Well, you've _done_ it," said Jeremy.

Fletcher shook his head. "I haven't."

"You said you had," Jeremy said.

"I lied."

Jeremy was standing real close to Fletcher now. He put his other hand on Fletcher's other shoulder, and felt Fletcher's hands on his hips, pulling him in against Fletcher. They were kissing again, but this time with their bodies pressed against each other. Fletcher felt good, solid, against him.

"Why'd you lie?" Jeremy was fascinated. Fletcher _could_ lie, Jeremy knew, he'd heard him do it, but mostly Fletcher was known for the kind of abrasive honesty that could rip your skin open.

"You want to talk about that or you want to go to bed?"

"Go to bed."

"Good choice." Fletcher kissed him again.

They undressed each other, moving over to the bed, Fletcher careful and slow, Jeremy moving fast. Fletcher tried to slow him down by tickling him, and Jeremy got the giggles but he didn't let that stop him. He won, which meant Fletcher pushed him over on to his back and finished taking off his pants and socks while he lay there fighting down the last giggles and taking in what Fletcher looked like naked.

He'd seen Fletcher naked, they shared a cabin, but this wasn't Fletcher like he was when they were stumbling in or out of the shower, past each other, when you had to be polite and not look (and not comment on the smell, because just past Jump a body smelt like old laundry). Fletcher had dark body hair -- on his chest, down to his belly, around his groin. It was as black as the hair on his head, and looked good against the clear brown of his skin and the blue of his eyes. He looked a bit like Jeremy, as Family goes: they both had black hair, and Jeremy's skin was a shade darker, and Jeremy's eyes were brown instead of blue, but they had the same eyebrows -- Sue, of all people, had pointed that out once -- they looked more alike than Jeremy and Vince, and Linda didn't look like any of them. But Fletcher was just good to look at, Jeremy thought, and it felt good to be able to lie back and stare without any worries about being impolite.

They got under the covers, because it felt better that way even though the room was warm, and Fletcher started kissing him again. Jeremy had wondered if he was going to have to explain to Fletcher the things they could do, if stationer sex ed tapes didn't explain even that, but then Fletcher's hands started rubbing at his thighs, long slow strokes, and somehow that went right out of Jeremy's head.

Fletcher took his mouth on a tour of Jeremy's body, and Jeremy tried to reciprocate with his hands and his mouth but Fletcher kept distracting him. All the while, Jeremy could feel his penis getting harder -- it wasn't like when he got himself to come, when he was alone in the cabin or in the shower, it felt somehow harder and bigger than it did when he was touching it with his hands, just as Fletcher's penis looked harder and bigger than his own. When Fletcher's mouth closed over the head of his penis, Jeremy nearly shrieked -- his head jerked back and he felt himself let go, like letting go into Jump, as Fletcher slid his mouth up and down the shaft of his penis, and Jeremy seemed to explode. He was crying when he felt Fletcher let go of his penis, gone small and limp: he could feel the tears wet on his face. He wasn't sad, it was just -- it was just too much. More than too much.

He didn't want Fletcher to think he was a baby, crying like that. Fletcher lay down beside him and Jeremy attacked: he wanted Fletcher to know what it felt like. He was more impatient than Fletcher, but Fletcher's penis was harder than his had been -- had to be: and seemed to be bigger: Jeremy gasped and focussed and put his mouth down on the head, remembering what the sex ed tapes said, but this was all _real_. The taste and the smell and the feel of Fletcher's penis in his mouth, hearing Fletcher gasp, feeling his whole body shudder. It was more exciting than he'd imagined, doing it to Fletcher like this: his penis was getting hard again.

Fletcher seemed to last longer than he did. Jeremy knelt up and looked at Fletcher. He wasn't crying. He was lying completely limp on the bed -- they'd kicked the covers off, the bed was a mess -- his head back, his eyes closed. After a moment, he opened his eyes and looked back at Jeremy.

"I got lucky," he said. He wasn't smiling. There wasn't anything in his voice like there usually was, senior to junior, age-rank, responsibility.

Jeremy lay down next to him. His erect penis docked against Fletcher's thigh, and Fletcher's hand closed round it in a friendly kind of way, like Fletcher's arm coming round his shoulders. Jeremy's hand slid round Fletcher's penis, feeling it quiver as if with recognition. It felt good to hold. Jeremy felt good all through.

***

Neither of them talked about it, any more than Vince and Linda talked about it. If the senior-juniors knew about it, nobody said: and Jeremy watched Fletcher and was sure that nobody was saying anything to him, either. _Keep it off the deck_ , that was the Rule: and people were entitled to as much privacy as they liked for what they did on liberty, if they kept the rules.

Boardcall meant the end of that. Next station, maybe they'd have private rooms, and maybe they wouldn't. Maybe he and Fletcher would have sex again: maybe they wouldn't. Jeremy hoped they would, thought Fletcher hoped so too. They were separated in the lounge, holding on to different rails not far apart: Jeremy stood looking at Fletcher's back, at the shape of his head. Someone started to sing, as someone always did, one of the space ballads, the one about parting and farewell, and other voices joined in. Jeremy opened his mouth to sing: and felt, absurd and childish, the sting of tears.

" _Rise and go,_ " the voices around him, " _boardcall's an hour; part friends..._ "

He hadn't kissed Fletcher as they packed to go: he'd been too much wanting to show Fletcher he could be adult about this, he could keep to the rules. Now he wished he had, he wished he could; but he had to put Fletcher out of his mind till the next station, and let Fletcher do the same.

The crewman standing next to him put a hand on his arm: Jeff, the senior cook, older than the War. Jeremy looked at him. Jeff had tears standing in his eyes as well. "Always takes me like that," Jeff said, under the sound of voices singing. "You too?"

Jeremy nodded.

Jeff didn't smile. He patted Jeremy on the arm. "Part friends," he said, still quietly. "It's the only way." Then his hand went back to the rail. One minute to countdown.

There was a space next to Fletcher: Jeremy had just deliberately not seen it. He let go of the rail and moved, fast, as he'd changed position sometimes in the past for pure devilment. He was next to Fletcher, and their hands were clinging to the same rail. Fletcher looked at him with the kind of blankness he'd shown in his first days aboard, and Jeremy said to him, as the voices rose in a loud, rollicking chorus of the next song, "Friends?"

Fletcher's expression didn't change. But he nodded, sharply. After the clank and jerk of separation from the station, when the floor went wobbly and there was briefly no up or down, Jeremy risked a look at him again. The blankness had gone out of Fletcher's face. He gave Jeremy a real grin, and joined in the next song.

end

4021 words

 


End file.
